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"The activities of the El Dorado Foundation are misleading, are dangerous and show a lack of deep respect for the people of Cabañas and El Salvador," said Jennifer Moore, Coordinator of the Latin America Program Mining Watch Canada, while presenting a joint research document with the National Roundtable against Mining.

The document entitled "Mining, corporate social responsibility and conflict: Oceana Gold and the El Dorado Foundation in El Salvador", establishes that the actions of the foundation have the same objectives of Pacific Rim Mining and its successor OceanaGold which seek to develop a mining project that is controversial due the population density and pollution it would generate.

A Canadian oil conglomerate is suing the U.S. over its actions to protect the climate. It’s a small taste of what could come under the TPP.

A few years back, I was one of the hundreds of climate activists arrested while protesting the Keystone XL pipeline outside the White House. So when the president finally pulled the plug on the project last November, it felt like a huge victory — symbolic, maybe, but definitely worth a trip to the booking station.

In the new global economy, however, no victory is safe. I thought back to Miguel.

I met Miguel Rivera in 2009. He and four fellow activists were being honored with the Institute for Policy Studies’ Letelier-Moffitt human rights award for their leadership in El Salvador’s fight against toxic gold mining. Under massive public pressure, the government had agreed to a five-year moratorium on new gold mining permits and was considering the world’s first permanent ban.

El Salvador sits on a rich gold deposit – and wants to leave it in the ground, in order to protect its drinking water. The investor sues: a test of strength for the young democracy.

“End poverty, Not Democracy!” Demonstrators protest in front of the World Bank building in Washington, against the arbitration tribunal process of Pacific Rim vs. El Salvador.

Any day now a verdict could be reached in Washington that will decide over the future of a whole country. The plaintiff: Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company, which does not exist anymore. The court: an arbitration tribunal of the World Bank. The defendant: El Salvador, a little Central American country maltreated by violence. It is about a rich gold deposit – and on the question, whether a poor country like El Salvador should venture to ban its exploitation, for the sake of the environment. The majority of Salvadorans would do it.

As the world celebrated the conclusion of the COP21 talks in Paris, the somber mood in the community of La Maraña, in the northern department of Cabañas of El Salvador, hardly echoes the cheerful worldwide fetes.

A few days after the signing of the of the accord in December, members of mining affected communities in one of the countries most affected by climate change, have gathered to commemorate the 6th anniversary of the gruesome murder of environmental activists who opposed a gold mining project in their community.

“We are here to denounce the incompetence of the Salvadorean Government for failing to investigate and prosecute these crimes,” states Domingo Miranda, president of La Maraña´s Environmental Association.

El Salvador’s refusal to allow gold mining within its borders sets it apart from most other Latin American countries, but the mining suspension is far from permanent. Since 2007, three successive presidents, from both the right-wing ARENA and left-wing FMLN parties, have maintained an administrative metals mining “industry freeze.” This executive action has created a de-facto moratorium that prevents all mining firms – international and Salvadoran, public and private – from accessing El Salvador’s estimated 1.4 million ounces of gold deposits. Some in the Salvadoran media trumpet this policy. When former U.S. President Bill Clinton made a philanthropic visit to El Salvador earlier this month, a number of news stories fixated on one of his travel companions: Canadian mining magnate Frank Guistra. Some media slammed Guistra as “persona non grata in El Salvador.” They showcased his billion-dollar global mining investments, labeling him (incorrectly) a major shareholder in Oceana Gold, the Australian company suing El Salvador for $284 million for having denied the firm a license to mine.

On Monday, November 9, El Salvador was host to an unusual meeting of some of the continent’s wealthiest and most influential players: former US President Bill Clinton, notorious Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim, and Canadian businessman Frank Giustra, who has made a career out of major investments worldwide in mining, from gold and diamonds to uranium, among other industries.

The visit was ostensibly to promote a local project of the Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership (CGEP), which both Giustra and Slim finance with $100 million donations. In El Salvador, the CGEP supports the so-called sustainable development work of a key local figure: Carlos Callejas, owner of the Super Selectos grocery store chain who is widely rumored to be pursuing the 2019 presidential nomination for the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party. Clinton, Slim and Guistra’s visit to El Salvador was effectively an early campaign boost for Callejas, providing enormous publicity for the Callejas Foundation, a recipient of CGEP funding, and the Super Selectos chain, while bolstering Callejas’ image for a 2019 presidential bid.